Page 83 - Education in a Digital World

70 National Policymaking

technologies and internet, and over three-quarters of teachers having received
training in digital technology use. Schools have been required to develop individual
‘educational use of technology plans’ committing them to technology use
throughout most learning, teaching and management activities. A particular
emphasis in light of the county’s geographical and demographic diversity has been
to ensure broadband and connectivity for rural schools – therefore aiming to ensure
“access to the same resources of information and cultural interchange, regardless of
social or geographical location” (Álvarez 2006, p.391). Over the first fifteen years of
its operation Enlaces attracted funding levels in excess of US$200 million (Sánchez
and Salinas 2008), with the programme continuing into the 2010s as an overarching
framework for digital technology use in Chilean education.

Educational Technology Policymaking in Singapore

A final contrasting example is the small island city-state of Singapore which has also
pursued a sustained and substantial educational technology drive over the past thirty
years. The Singaporean government has long touted itself as overseeing the
development of a world-leading information society, with the country’s authorities
pursuing what Mark Warschauer (2001, p.305) described as “one of the most far-
reaching attempts to infuse information technology in society”. These centralised
political efforts have been embodied in three successive ‘National ICT Master-
plans’– part of an extensive series of wider carefully managed top-down techno-
logical reforms. Originating with its first National Information Technology plan in
1987, Singapore followed a centralised ‘IT2000 Vision’ throughout the 1990s
which was designed to establish the country as an ‘intelligent island’. This was based
initially around the integration of digital technology into eleven major sectors of
society, ranging from construction and real estate to education and healthcare.
Throughout the IT2000 and subsequent ‘Singapore One’ policy agendas, education
was positioned as a major area in the creation of an advanced national information
infrastructure. In educational terms, S$2 billion was committed to achieving the
connection of every school to the internet, leading in 1998 to Singapore being
the first nation to provide all of its primary and secondary schools with at least one
internet connection.
From these beginnings, Singapore has consistently pursued the integration of
digital technology in its educational system through the implementation of three
‘Masterplan’ policy agendas from 1997 to 2014. The first ‘Masterplan for ICT
in Education’ committed S$2 billion of investment between 1997 and 2002,
setting detailed targets for the equipping of schools with computers and internet
connections, based on eventual targets of one computer for every two students and
over a quarter of the school curriculum to be technologically-based. Further
investments of S$600 million a year were made to maintain and replace hardware,
develop new software, and provide for the continuous training of teachers. A
second S$470 million Masterplan then maintained this momentum between 2003